


Vine and Fig Tree

by Kendrix



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, For reasons, Male Byleth - Freeform, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrix/pseuds/Kendrix
Summary: Many years after the war, Linhardt visits some old friends.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth/Hubert von Vestra, Linhardt von Hevring & Edelgard von Hresvelg
Kudos: 37





	Vine and Fig Tree

_Like the scripture says:  
"Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree  
And no one shall make them afraid."  
They'll be safe in the nation we've made_

_Mmmm I want to sit under my own vine and fig tree  
A moment alone in the shade  
At home in this nation we've made  
One last time_

_\- From the 'Hamilton' Musical_

There once came a day where, as ever so often, Linhardt von Hevring followed one of his sporadic whims to finally put into motion some endeavor that he had long been putting off for days untold.

Ever the cool dispassionate thinker yet never a stranger to ease and comfort, he reasoned that it would all in all be far more troublesome to let the trail go cold, for judging from past experience, it might be a long time indeed until he came by another, and by then, he might be too old to make the trip, at least if he wished for his errand to be conducted in a chiefly pleasurable manner – And if it came to that, he knew himself well enough that he probably wouldn't bother with the effort.

At present, he was considered a fairly well-preserved middle-aged specimen, the lines in his face still fine and gentle, and he was quite confident that he should manage a leisurely stroll across the countryside without regretting it; Indeed, he might quite enjoy having some time to himself without the necessity to waste even token amounts of time on the preparation of various lectures, and the many ideas he had been pursuing could probably profit from being given a few weeks to marinate undisturbed, seeing as he was stuck in his research. Given a few weeks' worth of fresh air to tumble around in his subconscious, his latest projects might perhaps do him the mercy to get unstuck all by themselves.

Besides, the academy's director, who had replaced the archbishop's role in a secular function, was not the boss of him, and neither was the emperor who, unlike his predecessor, didn't have Linhardt owing him any personal favors. Those who knew him well were little surprised to find that he had marched off without even tidying up his room, leaving only a brief, hand-written letter as explanation.

That said, Linhardt would not even have been fooling himself if he claimed that the reasons for his journey were deeply mired in pure self-interest, for if his intel was to be believed, he stood a chance to meet a very special person who'd long-since held a place inside his heart along with other cherished friends.

Ever since the abdication, the now seasoned scholar had kept his eyes peeled for possibly news, and though there had been plenty of false leads in the past, this latest report from a traveling merchant seemed more promising than any before.

Soon after he'd caught wind, he had now and then asked around for any who might substantiate the tale – though it was no longer officially a place of religious significance or indeed anything more than a simple school, Garreg Mach Monastery and its adjacent town were still located in the dead center of Fodlan and as such, saw many travellers passing through from all corners of the now much-expanded empire. Besides the capital itself, there were probably few places that could have been just as suitable to the task of sifting for news.

The first story had mentioned a particular village, a small, remote speck in the countryside of what had once been north-western Adrestia at the time of his birth.

Due to its size, its visitors were few and travelers who had passed it were far and in-between, but lo and behold: Before too long Linhardt did indeed find his suspicions corroborated.

The news concerned a man and a woman, scarcely older than Linhardt himself, and both clearly seasoned warriors and without doubt, natural leaders. Some accounts also mentioned a tall, bony-faced specter following them around, a second man the age of the first who had the look of having been an official or spell caster, and it was then that Linhardt knew that his hunch had been right on the money.

Though most of the stories seemed to focus on the two warriors, and how the merchants and passing travelers had not expected their like in that little, insignificant town which only regional maps even thought worthy of mention – which left little doubt in the young crest scholar's mind that those three had chosen it for that particular reason.

The timing was right as well:

If they were who Linhardt thought them to be, they wouldn't have been so foolish as to choose their new home right after the abdication – At least one of them was rather fond of natural scenery, so maybe they traveled the countryside first; But six months after, the villagers would have spotted the silhouettes of three bags-laden strangers on the outskirts of their dwelling, and they said that they were a company of former warriors.

One witness was under the impression that they were retired mercenaries, having hears from at least one of them that he used to be a sell-sword. Another had heard from one of the villagers that they had likely fought for the Empire back in the unification war, and were inclined to believe them based on the account that they had shown up with some amount of expensive gear and fancy armor.

Seeking to be of use to their new community and give their new, wary neighbors reason to accept them, they had offered to form part of the town's guard and night-watch, a task for which they soon proved laughably overqualified. It was a small village and its guard consisted of the most incorrigible the local night owls as well as a handful of particularly burly villagers; Even calling them a militia would have been overly generous, most wielded whatever threshes, axes and pitchforks were currently out of use.

The two warriors were so skilled with their weapons as to be beautiful to behold, and their companion proved to be an expert wielder of dark magic. Many of the locals had not even seen a mage in action before apart from the occasional party tricks performed by the odd magically gifted traveler. By themselves they seemed perfectly content to simply maintain the watch and came up with suggestion to whip the town's little defense force into shape. They instituted regular drills and some semblance of discipline, and the town was never again troubled by bandits or even drunken brawls. The odd trio more than earned their keep, and the townsfolk soon came to appreciate and trust in their clear and evident leadership abilities.

When the town was struck by a mudslide during the next Red Wolf Moon, the strangers had distinguished themselves by coordinating the relief efforts, keeping cool heads while small community of farmers panicked all around them.

By the time all the granaries, huts and farmsteads were rebuilt, their inhabitants had named one of the newcomers as their mayor – A stoic, blue-haired swordsman with an uncanny gift for pep-talks and swift planning whose description Linhardt recognized all-too well.

No one in the village could escape the conclusion that those three must have been experienced leaders, but for all the questions that this posed, and for all that he and his companions sometimes displayed startlingly hard-boiled, dampened reactions, the man had his way of inspiring their loyalty and faith, as did the woman he brought with him for all that this was somewhat offset by her forceful personality. Once they got to know her more, they found her discerning, altruistic and fair-minded, and with time they figured that even the party's dubious-looking mage couldn't be so bad. He wasn't friendly or approachable, per se, but he was certainly astute.

With time, the trio diversified their tasks in the village: The swordsman proved to be a more than passable amateur fisherman and started tilling his own plot of land near the house than he and his companions had been provided, and over the years he still found the time to tutor the town's youngest in self-defense. Clearly a man of many talents, he also turned out to be adept at healing magic and was often called to help out when one of the villagers was sick -

But he seemed to have the most joy in his own little garden of vegetables and flowers, a joy that a traveling warrior would likely rarely been able to afford.

It was entirely his own, claimed by his own choice and many got the impression that he didn't use to have many such things in his previous life... to a degree, this seemed to be the case with all of them.

The other two didn't adjust quite as easily – Despite the villager's initial expectations, whatever illustrious past deeds they had left behind them had not made them choosy and they readily volunteered for whatever additional tasks were required in the village, but it was clear that their previous lives had not involved very much farming. Even so, it was clear that they were determined to do their part (though in the villager's minds they had already done so through their contributions to the watch).

The mage, a frugal, practical and adaptive sort, took to helping the swordsman with his mayoral duties and soon took over what little administrative book-keeping tasks such a small village could produce, and through his considerable administrative talents actually much improved the efficiency of their resource utilization by keeping track of harvests and the like.

The woman had taken the longest to take up anything else but her shifts at the watch, which had been a source of frustration to her – reportedly, she had been quite keen on idyllic village life and after a life of bloody deeds despaired at not being good for any use past the purposes of war, that she was well-near obsolete in this new, peaceful Adrestia that her actions in the war had helped to create. Finding the calm life she sought was not as easy as she once thought. Perhaps the shadow of the war still haunted her, many years after the fact.

It was more an act of desperation when she repurposed her old battle-axe for chopping firewood and returned to the village carrying an obscene amount of logs that seemed much to big for what a woman of her size and build should have been able to carry, even if she _had_ spent decades working as some sort of warrior or general. But she quickly found that in the cold of winter, the villagers much appreciated having their share of kindling dropped at their doorstep rather than having to send their eldest children out to the woods – The town had not had a designated woodcutter before, and though the idea of having a retired officer with the bearings of a refined, educated lady for a lumberjack might have struck some as bizarre, no one was going to complain about easier access to firewood.

She seldom left the village, but sometimes of of her companions would visit a larger town's market and bring her a pile of books as a souvenir. She kept an ample collection in the second floor of their cottage and made a point of loaning them to any interested neighbors; In later years, she could also be spotted helping the village kids to practice their letters, always making a point to impart to them the importance of education:

“If you work hard, you could be a member of the senate when you grow up.”

“What, even a peasants' son like me?”

“ _Especially_ someone like you.”

Thus, the trio found themselves a vital part of the small community, and few children born after their arrival could have imagined their little town without the mysterious trio or the small cottage they inhabited.

Of course, that didn't keep their neighbors from their own speculations on the riddle posed by their arrival – those three weren't simply a troupe of old footsoldiers, even peasants with no experience of military affairs couldn't have believed that – and what they disclosed of their deeds in the war, however vaguely, included mentions of many decisions.

So the general consensus among the villagers was that they had surely been officers of some sort, if not generals. The previous Emperor had a reputation for bringing the oddest people into her ranks, from a former street urchin turned opera singer turned battle mage, to some eccentric and famously unsociable young noble who would ride into battle wearing a skull mask.

Of course this far from the capital in such a remote village no one knew what the previous emperor and her generals had really been like or even their appearance. There had not been very much demand for generals anyways– though it had begun with a full-scale war, the last years of the last emperor's reign had been some of the most peaceful ones Fodlan had seen in a while. Relations with Bridgid and Almyra were better than ever and since corruption had been thoroughly uprooted special privileges for the nobility had become a thing of the past, peasant revolts were at an all time low.

But after all the new arrivals had done for them they would hardly have begrudged them for wanting to turn over a new leaf, especially if they had renounced their lands and titles to do so... for more than few suspected that at very last the lady must have been the scion of some of the old noble houses. She was well-spoken, well-read, and there was an elegance and formality in her speech and mannerisms that must have been impressed in her from an early age for it to persist through so many years, though she made no effort to maintain it and clearly had no attachment to whatever she had discarded.

The two men, it was believed, must then have been some of her most loyal retainers who had followed her into her new life. The tall, dark-haired mage, in particular, often acted in a markedly deferential manner out of what appeared to be ingrained habit – clearly, he must have been her attendant, and the swordsman then perhaps once the captain of her soldiers. They often flanked her like parts of one well-oiled unit.

Another of Linhardt's sources had disputed the idea: The swordsman turned mayor was no mere underling, he met the lady's steely gaze without flinching and both of his companions often deferred to his judgment. Clearly this was her husband, and the other man, her lover – they spoke with an inflection that was common in Enbarr, where concubinage was still a common practice – wasn't the last emperor's own mother one of her father's numerous consorts?

Linhardt didn't think so, both Edelgardand Hubert had never been the sort for ritual or tradition and he much doubted that they would have bothered with the hassle of formally taking him as a concubinus. She'd only worn Byleth's ring cause the former professor had tended to bring out her secret soppy side.

The crest scholar had no doubt about their identities – Multiple accounts had used the precise words 'like something out of an old legend' to describe their extraordinary prowess. At this point, he might as well consider that phrase as a diagnostic criterion for the Crest of Flames.

…

The moment Linhardt made it to the village gates, he knew he'd come to the right place.

He was stopped outside a simple wooden palisade, by a lone guard in simple light-brown leggings and an off-white, sleeveless tunic, a youth who seemed hardly older than Linhardt himself was back when he first enrolled at the officer's academy.

He had pale skin, wavy dark hair all the way down to his shoulders, and sharp lavender eyes that fixated him just a little bit too directly. His features were neither as bony as Hubert's not as sharp and refined as Edelgard's, and the end result diluted both their striking particularities to produce a darkly handsome look.

He held out a magic-infused spear which Hubert had at one point looted from Lord Arundel; During their assault on Shambhalla, he had 'returned' it right through the former regent's chest, a sight that Linhardt would much rather forget – even now he felt a little nauseous at the sight.

But the dark mage had refused to let him examine that thing for so long that the agony of his sizzling curiosity was not one that Linhardt was likely to forget, so he recognized the weapon on sight.

The youngster eyed him suspiciously – The aged scholar supposed that he was not exactly an everyday sight, but he had never particularly cared about that.

“Who goes there?”

“Linhardt von Hevring.” he quipped, unconcernedly. “And what's your name young lad?”

“You may call me Ionius.”

Named for Edelgard's late father, no doubt.

In another life, that might've been Ionius the Tenth.

Or maybe not – after a lifetime spent hopelessly disrupting his sleep schedule to study the ins and outs of crestology, Linhardt fancies himself just as good as old Hanneman had once been, if not better, meaning that he could tell on sight whether or not someone had a crest, and this boy before him, who in another life might have been a prince, most certainly had none.

“Okay Ionius. Pleased to make your acquaintance. It might sound a little strange, but could you point me to your parents' house? I'm an old friend of sorts.”

Judging by his eyebrows, young Ionius was not exactly convinced. That expression looked so much like Hubert's that Linhard honestly found it a bit confusing to see it on someone who had both eyes uncovered.

“Wait here!” the youngster asserted, making a sweeping motion with his free hand that much recalled a younger Edelgard, and then he turned, leaving Linhardt standing at the gates while he presumably went to fetch a replacement guard.

…

“Linhardt! Is that you?”

Even colored by many years, the voice he heard at the threshold of the small house was unmistakable. Byleth Eisner greeted his former student with a wide grin that would not have come to him quite so easily back at the academy. His hair was somewhat longer and he'd since grown a short but full beard, though nothing as wild as his late father's facial hair – Even so the new look did highlight their few outward similar, for all that the professor must otherwise take after his mother by principle of exclusion.

Going from a professor to a mayor was nowhere as wild as a young mercenary being hired as a professor in the first place, so Linhardt was not surprised that Byleth seemed to have thrived in his new environment. He had always seemed like the sort of person who would find a way to thrive in any sort of environment, a quality that Linhardt himself had often envied.

Though perhaps he could say that at least some minute fraction of that tenacity had rubed off on him.

The visitor was swiftly led through the house.

On the porch of the small cottage, Linhardt was met with a person on a rocking chair – a haggard, bony middle-aged woman already half-transformed into a little old lady, perhaps, somewhat ahead on schedule. Wrapped up in a light, brown blanket it was plain to see that she simply wasn't all that tall or bulky as she might appear, say, in ornate feather-studded armor. Her hair was tied in a simple knot.

She'd dyed it chestnut brown to disguise that telltale platinum, a rather different shade than what she'd once sported in childhood, because there was no going back to these days, but there had been a forwards movement leading to this casual, lounging posture and this loose, light clothing unconcerned with the two rows of ugly stitch marks that almost reached her collarbones. Linhardt imagined that once upon a wise she must have been quite meticulous at making sure that her roots didn' show but now that she'd reached a point where the strips of white might just as well chalked up to her age, she'd ostensibly stopped caring about them.

Only with delay did Linhardt note the long dark shadow at her side, no less intimidating for the flecks of gray at his temples. The long black cloak he wore was in theory not much alike to his blinged-out uniform from his time of his time as minister, but in practice it served the part of the dark sorcerer just as well, though he had since come to require square, horn-rimmed spectacles. Even now Linhardt wasn't quite sure whether to parse his expression as a contented welcome or some sort of smug smirk, though he certainly acknowledged his former classmate.

But the biggest surprise was found beyond the porch out in the garden.

To be honest, Linhardt had kind of hoped for this – from the moment that Byleth and Edelgard had announced their marriage, he couldn't help but wonder what sort of children might result from such formidable parents, not in the least because of their crests. He knew better than to bring it up, he'd rather painfully learned that lesson with Marianne and Lysithea, and suspected that it would be one of the last things that Edelgard would want to hear about their children, but his inner pedantic know-it all couldn't help but note the signs and start theorizing before his gracious hosts were even done introducing him.

Besides Ionius, whom he'd already met, there was an only slightly younger girl named Bernadetta, no doubt after a certain shy classmate of theirs. Judging by the long blue hair and the fairly understated reaction to being introduced, she must be the professor's daughter and as such, was a good deal shorter than her half-brother and only slightly taller than her mother. The hair and eye color might have been Byleth's, but it's straight, silky texture was all Edelgard's. She looked up only briefly before going right back to reading the book she'd brought out with her into the garden, and it was not exaggerated to say that there was something ever so slightly... well, you might almost say, _'out-of-a-lengend-ish_ ' to the sight of her as she did that, like if she were particularly bookish forest nymph or wood elf, which is to say that Linhardt was almost certain that she must have inherited a crest of flames.

The other, much younger girls made for a much more lively impression; Though they had been ostensibly busy gathering colorful flowers for some arcane purpose, the three younger sisters seemed rather excited about the visitor. The oldest of them even asked if he actually was “the same Linhardt as from the stories, out of all the kid probably looked the most like Edelgard was named for Dorothea, but differed from both her mother and her namesake by the practical, short hairstyle that she kept her messy blue hair in. One of the girls had even been named after Petra, one of Hubert's judging by the mop of dark hair, and how she was nearly equal to her sister in height despite being a few years younger.

That would be yet another Crest of Flames for little Dorothea (which finally confirmed Linhardts long-standing theory about what would happen if you crossed two people with the same one), and Minor Seiros for Petra junior.

Linhardt spent several seconds rapid-fire theorizing some convoluted mechanism or effect that could have explained the major crest of Seiros on the youngest he remembered that Sir Jeralt had one. Fittingly, her name was Geraldine, and with her mousy-brown braids, she indeed bore some degree of semblance to her grandfather, save that her face was much tinier and cuter and considerably less bearded.

“We were waiting for another boy to name him after my dad” Byleth supplied. “But then we accepted that it probably wasn't gonna happen, and named one of the girls after him. ”

“You know, you could at least have said where you were going! I understand that you'd want some privacy, but we're your _friends_ you know? You could at least have told Dorothea and Bernie... They were worried sick about you, Edelgard! And so was everyone else for that matter?”

“Even Ferdinand?” the woman asked, more as a playful jest than out of any serious doubt.

“ _Especially_ Ferdinand. You know how he is...”

Her lilac eyes turned serious. “There's more at stake here than even just our lives. I didn't just overthrow the Church so I could replace them. We did all that we did so that we could make a lasting change, something that would outlast us. For that to happen, it was necessary for Edelgard von Hresvelg to disappear.”

Hubert put it into rather more prosaic terms: “A political system can only be considered stable once there has been at least one peaceful change of power. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have it take place while we still have the capacity to intervene.”

“Not unless the worst happens.” she corrected. “I can't be seen as influencing my successor's decisions or still maintaining power from the shadows. For this to truly be a brand new chapter in the empire's history, I cannot afford even the _appearance_ of having anything to do with it.

I might have dedicated my life to bringing about this change, but I'm still part of the old world I was trying to pull down. I became a ruler through inheritance – a noblewoman with the power of crests. And I have no illusions about the things I have done, no matter how just the ends, no matter if they're the last such ugly things to happen in this world. I'm sure you of all people would agree.

There were many who still resented me, and I can't even really fault them... People will hardly complain that they're not being exploited by corrupt nobles or bishops, being given free education, or having a say in how they're governed, but the war has cost many of them dearly.”

To this, Hubert responded with his old familiar mockery: “Everyone loves sausage, but no one wants to know how it's made...” Linhardt had to admit, it made him almost nostalgic.

Edelgard was not half so flippant:

“Unreasonable as they might be, those sentiments can't be allowed to jeopardize the stability of the empire. To those who want a simple uncomplicated reason on which to blame the severe reality we used to live in, I am the object of their grudge. So it was necessary to separate that object from the empire as such.”

“Ah come on. You can't convince me that that was your only reason.” Linhardt mouthed. “I happen to know a thing or to about pretexts and excuses.”

“True enough”, Edelgard surmised, as she smiled to herself, and it recalled the levity that was not an uncommon sight back at the academy, but grew much rarer once she took up the burden of the throne – but it wasn't _quite_ the same, but something tempered by experience and the taste of dreams realized.

“There was another reason.” and at that she looked, quite fondly, to the kids that were playing in the garden. Little Dorothea and Petra junior had finished their handiwork and were now artfully arranging the resulting flower crown on the head of Geraldine, who grinned widely at her older sisters' generous gift, and at once, Linhardt understood, not the exact thing she was going to say, but the fundamental gist. Though he hadn't sired any children of his own, he _did_ mentor his share of promising younglings at the reopened academy, hoping to give to them what Byleth had provided for Linhardt himself.

“You don't want your former enemies to get to your kids?”

“More or less.”

“I get it. Never would have taken you for the sort to have five of them though.”

“Why not? I used to have quite a large family myself you know!” it was a playful rebuke, but Linhardt didn't fail to note the note of bitter-sweetness in her tone. He liked to hope that he'd gotten at least a little more perceptive in that regard – She had changed too. Inquisite by nature he'd been able to puzzle a few things together over the years, but this was the first time in over thirty years that she'd spoken to him so openly of her lost family.

“...but you're not wrong. My ancestors got their power by selling out humanity to Seiros, and were granted the power of her blood as a reward. That's not a legacy that I ever wanted to continue. Besides, I found it unconscionable to put a child anywhere in this brutal, irrational world. If they didn't have a crest, they would be disadvantaged, and if they did, many would try to use them for their power, just like they did with me. It seemed utterly irresponsible, even if I could somehow find the time and leisure to properly take care of them...”

“You could have adopted though, if you were just worried about passing on your blood.”

Linhardt was rather proud that he still managed to get a bit of a chuckle out of his old classmate.

“That's also quite true. But the reality is that I couldn't even imagine that for myself. Since after I... returned from the kingdom, I had spent all my life dedicated to my revolution at the expense of everything else. There was so much at stake... I couldn't afford to be anything other than a leader. I cast off everything else, every other part of me. There was no room for weaknesses or indulgences. I knew very well that I might not live to see the new world I was going to bring about. I was determined to bring down Rhea and destroy Shambhalla, but I had no guarantee that I would succeed, or that I would survive the ensuing power struggle. For all I knew, the one to come out on top might have been Claude, Dimitri or even some remaining agents of the Church. To bring about a better Future, I was willing to give everything I had, everything I was, everything I cared about... but I didn't think that there would be a place for me in that new, better world. I wouldn't be needed there nor would I belong to it.”

“...what changed?”

“You! Or rather all of you, everyone in the Black Eagle House, and especially Byleth. You were my friends. My comrades. My support...”

Linhardt could tell how much time had passed by how casually and naturally she now used the same rather than deferring to various respectful appellations, the clear intimacy implied, the light in her face as she passed her right fingers over the smooth surfaces of the pearly white ring on her left.

Edelgard sighed. “ I never wanted power – if not for my uncle's betrayal, I would never have been that high in the line of succession to begin with. I always thought that life would have been much easier if I we'd just been an ordinary family – if we were, none of those vile things would ever have happened to us. I never wanted anything more than to life an ordinary life where there's no special distance between me and anyone else. But after what happened, I thought it was impossible – And that even if it _were_ possible, the part of me that could do it was no longer there.

But I was wrong. And here I am. Living the peaceful life I always wanted. The one I thought I'd have to leave behind forever when the time came to ascend the throne... now I've left even that behind me, and I'm able to give my children the peaceful, ordinary life that their aunts and uncles never got to have. Regardless of their bloodline, or whether or not they have crests.

And frankly, I want it to stay that way. ”

There was something of her old hardness in there, as if the golden-crowned emperor summoned back into the present for just an instant.

“Don't worry, your secrets are safe with me. As long as my own curiosity is satisfied, I don't really care _that_ much about sharing my discoveries with anyone else.”

“Actually, I don't think much harm will come of it if you tell Dorothea and the others. I ought to have told you where I was going to begin with, but I suppose old habits die hard sometimes, even if they're long obsolete...”

….

The next year, Professor Hevring himself sponsored two students from a remote part of the empire. No one quite knew where exactly he found them, but neither did they doubt his judgment when the two of them quickly proved that his faith in them had been quite well-placed. You might almost think that they had already been tutored under some rather impressive masters. The surname 'Eisner' did raise some suspicious eyebrows, but it was not so uncommon a name as to be a confirmation all by itself, and even without knowing where they came from, Ionius and Bernadetta made a reputation all for themselves, especially since that particular class ended up having a rather eventful year – the siblings were hardly the only ones to catch eyes, seeing as for the first time, a prince of Almyra would be attending the esteemed academy as a gesture of goodwill and to further cultural exchange.

Which is to say that he was the first prince of Almyra to attend _officially_ , with no need for secrecy keeping him from wearing his traditional shawl over his suspiciously pink hair.

There was also a young Miss Gloucester in attendance, and a frankly impressive amount of little Gautiers, but that is a story of a different age.


End file.
